


Caesura

by cadmean



Category: Mugen Kouro | Infinite Space
Genre: Gen, Missing Scene, endgame spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2020-09-20
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:13:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26567881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cadmean/pseuds/cadmean
Summary: The end of the universe is a quiet thing.
Kudos: 2





	Caesura

The end of the universe is a quiet occasion.

It’s not peaceful – could never be peaceful, not with the Overlords’ Phages tearing their way through each and every populated planet in their way, dismantling age-old ruins with the same ease as they slice through state-of-the-art defense systems – but there is a soft sense of silence to it all. Valantin watches from the command bridge of his _Corsair_ as in the distance yet another line of the planetary alliance’s forces is crushed under the sheer destructive mass of Phages, and he can’t even manage to muster a frown as a whole fleet of ships is torn apart with nary a sound at all.

Space does not echo, he knows. But in instances like this he can’t help but wish it did.

He orders his ship to activate its void gate just as the first of the Phages draws close. Only a few thousand kilometers off and it’s almost as if he can feel the inexorable pull of the Overlords’ influence – he’d broken away from their control in perhaps a less fatal fashion than Patriarch Bogd had in his time, but now, with so many of the Overlords’ other creations running about, calling for him so _loudly_ , Valantin can’t help but wonder if Bogd might not have had the better idea of it after all.

A faint buzzing noise reaches Valantin not through his ears but through his very being as the Phages draw ever nearer, vibrating, _reverberating_ —and then his custom-built void gate catches hold of the _Corsair_ , and he leaves the approaching Phages behind like so much useless debris.

* * *

Despite everything, the streets of Merylgild are awash with life and noise as Valantin steps out of the space elevator. The ride down planetside, in contrast, had been utterly silent save for the steady strum of hydraulics – the CTA having either stopped working on its own account or, more likely, due to Taranis’ forceful intervention. A sensible choice, to deny the Phages the planet’s location for as long as possible, and a last-measure line of defense that he and Valantin had discussed long ago for just this eventuality. Considering the sheer mass of Phages bearing down on the system, however, it would do little but delay the inevitable—

And yet, perhaps, delay it just long enough for the emperor and the kid to make a difference.

This planet, with all its people and all the noise they make as they clamor for answers from their leaders, as they try to fight in any way they can against the inevitable doom looming on the horizon – it won’t be saved. It cannot be protected, as both Taranis and Valantin learned so early on into their fight. But if the intel he’s been gathering on the kid and his flux potential are accurate, then it – and the system. Perhaps even the whole LMC, if Valantin dared to hope – might just be _restored_ , once everything is said and done.

Valantin hums the soundless tune of a long-lost song as he steps into the empty foyer of the building housing the Lugovalian delegation.

* * *

Their retreat to – attack on – the Sol System is a hasty thing, forces drawn up and discarded in the same breath, until, at last, it’s only a bare handful of steadfast zero g-dogs who remain. The Phages are hot on their heels and soon they will be facing down whatever forces the Overlords have mobilized in defense of the true void gate, and Valantin, for one, takes his time in savoring whatever scant few moments of peace yet remain.

In between skirmishes he manages to eke out a semblance of quiet, leaning on a communications console and overlooking the breadth of his ship as it continues its path in the kid’s wake. By Valantin’s calculations – and whatever shreds of Overlord-granted intuition yet remain available to him – they should be within sight of the system’s star in no more than a few days at best.

Sol. Where everything once began so, too, would it now end there.

“I never pegged you for the sentimental type,” Taranis tells him, his voice rough over the comms system. This far out from known space even the short-range transmitter waves they use to communicate between ships are starting to fade out, almost as if the universe itself were pushing them away. “It doesn’t suit you, my friend.”

Valantin shrugs for the comms video feed. “Which is why I won’t wallow in it, if that’s what has you concerned. No,” and he sighs, meeting Taranis’ steady gaze with his own, “I was only . . . marveling at the prospect of finally getting to the see the star in all its glory.”

“Never thought we’d get here at all, did you?”

A laugh escapes him at that, despite everything. “I’d hoped for it, certainly. And yet the chances of us both coming here had always seemed slim at best, admittedly.”

On the video feed, Taranis only nods.

* * *

A poet on some far-away meteorite once wrote that if the universe were to end, then surely it would do so in the same manner that it had once started: with a bang. Valantin knows, now, that it won’t. As he orders his ship to turn around amidst the dark desolation of the Sol System, however, he does so with the fervent conviction that if the universe won’t provide that final explosive end note—well, then, Valantin will just have to create it himself.


End file.
